C'est la vie
by MalllladeImaginaire
Summary: Events from the lives of Joly, Laigle & Musichetta. Written with HaliaeetusLeucocephalus! ;) (Rated for later chapters and rating may go up ;P) xx
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note

_Hi. This was written with HaliaeetusLeucocephalus. It's probably a bit too long an not all that interesting yet, but it will get better in later chapters (Plus, I don't really care if it's too long, I like it ;P). It would probably have been finished sooner if my 10 week old kitten hadn't decided to 'help' write it... That's about it from me. Hope you enjoy ;) Thanks for reading ;) Love MalllladeImaginaire xx_

**_Hi :) I can't really think of anything to say... Hope you enjoy the story :) Love_**_ **HaliaeetusLeucocephalus xx**_

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It was a freezing night in the middle of January and a storm was raging overhead. The rain came down in torrents, massive, angry, purple thunderclouds were chasing each other across the sky and lightning crackled ominously above the rooftops. At 5 o'clock in the evening it was already as dark as midnight, nobody was to be seen about on the streets. Nobody, that is, except one young woman.

The young woman in question was rushing as fast as her feet would carry her. Almost running, she hurried at random through the streets with seemingly no idea which way to go. Occasionally she let out a loud sob. She was completely and hopelessly lost.

She was petite with very dark brown hair and sparkling brown eyes. Her dress had once been both fashionable and flattering but now it was soaking wet and clung to her slim body, her hair was plastered to her head. The dainty shoes she had on her feet were worn through and the soles were starting to leak. They were caked in muck and grime from the street. In her arms the young woman was clutching a heap of unrecognisable, wet fabric. Her name was Musichetta.

At a run she rounded the corner into a particularly dark side-street. She had no idea what it was called or where it lead to, but in her panic she didn't care. Something in her frightened brain told her if she tried enough streets, eventually she would find the right one. All logic seemed to have left her; it hadn't even crossed her mind to try knocking on someone's door and asking for directions.

Musichetta was about halfway down the little alley, when lightning flashed and there was a particularly loud boom of thunder, causing her to scream and trip over a cobblestone, only just managing to catch herself in time before she fell. Her bundle flew from her arms and landed in the gutter in the centre of the road, where it was almost immediately swallowed up and coated in the brown sludge mixed with rain water that was flowing thorough the narrow channel towards the sewers.

Despite herself, Musichetta let out a cry of anguish as she watched three months worth of work ruined in about as many seconds. Diving forwards, she crouched down and tried to fish what had once been ball gowns and now looked like dish rags out of the sewage. Try as she might, however, she couldn't quite reach them without either having to step into the unspeakable filth or overbalancing and falling face-first into it. In despair, she straightened up and cast around her for anything that she could use to help get the clothing back.

It was at that moment that a young man rounded the corner. He had his collar turned up against the rain, a cane in his hand and several books tucked under his arm; these he was trying to shield as best he could from the weather. Understandably, he seemed to be in rather a hurry and in a matter of moments had drawn level with Musichetta, who was still stood frozen in the middle of the road. At first she thought he was going to walk on past her, but he stopped and called out to her.

"Mademoiselle, what on earth are you doing standing out here in the rain?", he called, raising his voice so as to be heard over the peals of thunder echoing off the surrounding buildings, "you'll get soaked!"

"I already am. What difference does a little more rain make?", Musichetta shouted back, trying her hardest not to burst into floods of tears in front of this stranger. There was nothing she wanted more at that second than to be sat at home where it was safe and dry. Miserably she wiped a tear away as it trickled down her cheek.

The man looked up at the sky and shuddered visibly. "But there's a storm. You can't possibly stay out in this weather, it's not safe."

"Trust me, I have no intentions of staying outdoors any longer than is absolutely necessary," she told him with a slightly hysterical laugh and brushed her rain-soaked hair out of her eyes to peer at the ruined dresses again.

"Then why were you stood in the middle of the street?" As they were speaking the rain picked up and thundered down even harder, slowly turning the alley they were stood in into a river. The increase in water was too much for the narrow drain, already struggling to cope, and filthy water overflowed out of it's channel and began to seep across the street towards their feet. With a look of horror mingled with disgust the young man jumped back pulling her with him. "Shouldn't you be inside somewhere?"

By now Musichetta was starting to feel a little annoyed. She was tired, cold and lost and she didn't want to waste her time answering stupid questions. "In case you haven't noticed I've dropped these dresses in the gutter. I was just contemplating the best way of picking them up without having to touch all that filth. I'm not just stood here for the good of my health, you know."

This sentence had a strange effect on the man opposite her. He looked nervously up at the sky, then put his hand to his throat, as if feeling his pulse, and stood motionless for several seconds while Musichetta stared at him in confusion.

"What are you doing?", she asked, her anger vanishing to be replaced by curiosity at this singular behaviour.

He shook his head and rearranged the books under his arm in a feeble attempt to keep them dry. "Nothing. Where are you going?"

"Home."

"Is it far? It's getting dark." Saying it was 'getting dark' was an understatement. The rain blurred their vision and turned ordinary objects into threatening, looming shadows. The clouds had lost all their colour so now the sky was an angry black streaked with grey and to make matters worse the lantern at the end of they alley had not been lit so the only light was a small, pathetic candle stood in somebody's window. It was already almost impossible to make anything out in the gloom but as they looked around a hand pulled the shutters of the window with the candle shut plunging them into almost complete darkness.

Musichetta shivered and drew a little closer to the wall of one of the houses. "I know it is, which is why...," she stooped to gather up the fallen dresses that had been washed out of the gutter, "...I really should be going. It's going to take me ages to get home as it is. If I can ever work out where home is."

"Where do you live?", the young man asked her with a note of concern.

Clutching her now dirty bundle to her chest Musichetta smiled feebly. "No offence, but I don't know you. It would be foolish of me to tell a complete stranger exactly where I live."

He nodded seriously and pulled his coat tighter around himself. "Fair enough. I suppose that really wouldn't be very prudent."

"Not at all." She went to hurry past him in the direction she had been heading but he stopped her by gently catching her arm.

"I live just round the corner. You're going to catch your death if you don't get out of this rain soon and I couldn't possibly allow that. Come home with me." He let go of her and smiled kindly. At her sceptical look he continued, "I promise I'm not a deranged killer or anything like that and I won't try anything on. I just don't want to see a beautiful girl," he blushed but fortunately the young woman couldn't see that in the gloom, "catch her death of cold because no one was kind enough to offer her somewhere to warm up."

"How could I refuse a proposal like that?" Quite frankly, at that second Musichetta would have agreed to anything that meant she could get out of the storm and into somewhere nice and warm. This young man seemed nice and that was good enough for her. Besides, if he did turn out to be a mad rapist or murderer she could always run away. Weighing it up in her head, she decided it was worth the risk.

"You'll come?", her companion asked, a hint of surprise in his voice. He clearly hadn't been expecting her to accept.

She nodded, then remembered he probably couldn't see her very well any more and answered: "Yes, just promise not to murder me or anything like that." Despite herself, she couldn't help giggling slightly.

The young man laughed cheerfully, an odd sound in such an unpleasant setting. "I promise." He took her arm and carefully helped her back the way she had come along the alley towards his home.

It took them about 10 minutes to reach the right building. Neither of them spoke much on the way there, both were too cold and fed up to be in the mood for conversation. As soon as they got out of the rain however, the young man seemed to cheer up again. "Here we are." He unlocked a door at the end of a long hallway. "Please come in."

With a gracious smile Musichetta walked past him and into the small room."Thank you." She took a few minutes while he was busy taking off his hat and coat and hanging them up neatly to examine her surroundings. Despite it's size the room was well furnished. In the middle of the floor there was a table with two uncomfortable looking chairs. A desk occupied the space under the one little window. It was piled high with books and papers and all sorts of miscellaneous and slightly bizarre artefacts, including a large stack of magnets and what looked horrifyingly like a human skull. Bookcases lined most of the walls apart from the one next to the fireplace where a large, squishy armchair stood. The floor was almost completely covered by a large rug. Two doors lead out of this room, the one they had just entered by and another, presumably leading to the bedroom. "You do have a nice room here, Monsieur...?"

"Joly," he answered with a slight bow in her direction.

"Pleased to meet you. My name is Musichetta." The young woman wandered over to the desk and peered curiously at the skull, still clutching her bundle of sodden dresses and shivering slightly from the cold.

Her new acquaintance, Joly, offered her a chair. "It suits you," he commented quietly.

She gratefully accepted and sat down, dropping the dresses onto the floor beside her, glad to be out of the rain at last. "Thank you again." Musichetta studied Joly as he hurried across the room to rummage through the things on the desk looking for something. He was quite tall, but not exceptionally so, slim, well-built and with a friendly face. His hair was untidy and brown and seemed to be constantly falling in his eyes, the colour of which she couldn't quite make out. Overall she decided that he looked very likeable and cheerful with maybe a hint of nervousness, which made her wonder what it was that was worrying him. Something in his eyes reminded her of a puppy and made her want to reach out and cuddle him. It took quite some effort to force herself to resist the temptation and stay sitting in her chair.

"Finally!" Joly straightened up holding a bottle and two glasses. "I know it's a strange place to keep things like this," he said as he poured them both a drink, "but the cupboard I used to keep them in was broken recently." He came back over and handed her one of the glasses then settled himself in the other chair. "So how come you were wandering around here in the rain in the first place Mademoiselle Musichetta?"

"You don't have to call me 'mademoiselle'. It sounds so formal and my name is long enough as it it. Mademoiselle Musichetta is such a mouthful. Just Musichetta is fine."

"Alright, 'Just-Musichetta', why were you out in this storm?", he asked with a charming grin.

She laughed feeling completely at ease with this stranger, almost as if they were old friends, even though they had never met before. "I was supposed to be delivering these dresses but I managed to get myself hopelessly lost and then, to make matters worse, I dropped them in the gutter, which is when you found me."

"Are you a dressmaker?"

Musichetta nodded. "Yes, but not a very good one, unfortunately," she answered, smiling ruefully, "most of my dresses end up looking horrible, although the blame doesn't lie entirely with me. Some clients order the strangest things."

Joly glanced down at the heap of pink and lilac fabric covered in fussy frills and bows lying beside her chair. "I think they're lovely, but I have to admit to having no knowledge about women's clothing at all."

"It doesn't matter now anyway,they are all completely ruined." With a toe the young woman prodded the offending items, which squelched revoltingly and leaked brown, slimy water onto the rug.

Looking horrified, Joly watched the puddle of water spreading slowly across the floor, soaking into the rug and seeping in between the floorboards. Almost involuntarily he pulled his chair away from the advancing filth. "They are not ruined. If we hang them up I'm sure they'll have dried out by morning," he objected in a would-be-optimistic voice, which sounded more disgusted than reassuring.

"They landed in the gutter," Musichetta pointed out, "Would you want to wear them if you knew they'd been in all that muck?"

"Even if they hadn't I wouldn't wear them. Pink is just not my colour."

Imagining what he would look like in one of her dresses made Musichetta start to laugh and soon Joly joined in as well, unable to stop himself. She couldn't help but notice the way his eyes lit up and glittered when he laughed and his smile was so endearing, she felt her heart warming towards him. A strange urge came over her to say something, anything, to make him laugh again. "You know perfectly well what I mean."

"Sorry," he chuckled, an amused grin still playing about his lips, "so there is absolutely nothing to be done to save your masterpieces?"

"I'm afraid not." In all honesty Musichetta hadn't even looked to see if any of them could be saved. From the ever-spreading brown puddle on the floor, though, she guessed they were beyond repair. Even if they weren't ruined by the water, they would have nasty brown stains from the contents of the gutter and if, by some miracle, she managed to wash out the stains the young woman had a sneaking suspicion the smell would never quite come out of the many layers of fabric and frills.

Not looking all that sorry about it, Joly picked up his cane from the corner of the room and hooked one of the dresses, a particularly nasty ball gown covered in bows, on the end of it. More sludge slid off the dress and squelched onto the floor with a nasty, wet splat. With the repulsive item held at arm's length, the young man made his way over to the fire and threw it on. There was a loud hiss and a cloud of black smoke and the dress caught fire. "In that case Requiescat in pace, dresses and can we throw them out of my room, they're unhygienic," he said cheerfully, before heading back for the next one.

"It looks like you already have but feel free, I hated the horrible things anyway. The blood, sweat and tears that went into them and for what? To create these horribly unfashionable, revolting, pink dresses. Throw them out and good riddance to them!" She knew she should really care about the months of work that had been wasted creating something she was letting somebody throw away but she just couldn't bring herself to mind. She was too cold and tired. Maybe tomorrow she would worry about the money she had really needed that she wouldn't get and how to tell the lady who had ordered the clothes that they had been ruined but now it was just too late. With a sigh Musichetta took a sip of her drink and watched as her new friend threw her works on the fire.

Throwing the last dress onto the fire Joly excused himself muttering something about needing to wash his hands and disappeared through the door she assumed led to his bedroom. The sound of splashing water could be heard for a minute and then he returned grinning happily. "There. They're gone."

Musichetta frowned puzzled. "Why were you washing your hands? You didn't even touch the actual clothes."

"Still. I don't want to risk catching anything off them. You never know what sort of dirt you find in the gutters." Joly looked embarrassed and quickly changed the subject by handing her a woolly blanket, "Here. You'd better get dry or you really will freeze. I'm sorry, I don't have a change of clothes to offer you, unless you'd care to borrow some of mine."

"Probably better not. Your clothes aren't exactly feminine."

"I should hope not."

There was a brief lull in conversation as Musichetta wrapped herself in the blanket, using a corner of it to wring out her sodden hair, drenching the already wet floor in the process. Carefully, she peeled her dress off, leaving her wearing only her underwear and a woolly blanket. Luckily the blanket was bulky and large enough so that it covered her completely, without being too indecent. The dress was soaked through, so she arranged it on the back of her chair near the fire to dry, hopefully without creases. Then she snuggled deeper into the folds of the warm wool and pulled her feet up, tucking them underneath her, before turning back to face Joly, who had been politely looking in the opposite direction and pretending to be fascinated by the rain running down the window pane.

Noticing she seemed to have finished changing, he looked back at his guest and smiled. "Better?", he asked.

Smiling back at him, Musichetta nodded. "A lot better. At least I don't resemble a drowned rat any more. Well, not as much anyway." She gestured mournfully at her hair, which, despite her best efforts was still unflatteringly plastered to her head.

Gallantly Joly cried: "You didn't before, you looked lovely. Here come and sit by the fire and warm up." He rushed over to the squishy-looking armchair and pushed it even closer to the flames.

"Flatterer!", Musichetta laughed as she gladly took the offered seat. She _was _actually feeling rather cold. Despite the fire and the warm blanket she couldn't help sneezing several times.

A sudden flash of worry crossed Joly's face. "Are you feeling any warmer? Do you want me to fetch you another blanket? Are you feeling unwell?" He deposited his chair next to hers and hurriedly went in search of a rug he was sure he had left somewhere, if only he could think where.

"No, it's fine,I'm just a little cold, that's all," his guest called after him.

The young man reappeared from out of the bedroom clutching an armful of clothes and looking if possible even more startled than before. "Cold? How cold? Are you shivering?", he demanded, dropping the clothes and bounding over to sit beside her.

"Umm... no?"

"Do you feel confused at all? Maybe finding it hard to think or concentrate? Do you feel at all drowsy?", he persisted, studying her intently.

Feeling slightly awkward at his sudden interest in how she felt Musichetta laughed. "It's late, of course I feel drowsy. And I have to admit to being slightly confused by all these questions, but other than that I feel perfectly normal." She snuggled further down in the armchair to avoid looking at Joly and stretched her cold feet towards the fire enjoying the delicious warmth that spread slowly through her.

Absent-mindedly Joly got to his feet and began to pace the room muttering under his breath to himself as if to make sure he didn't miss anything. "Breathing seems normal, speech is normal. She is shivering slightly but not violently, seems to be able to think clearly, though. Co-ordination seemed alright and she wasn't struggling to move around at all. She isn't behaving strangely, so that seems... Hang on, how would I know what her normal behaviour is like? She might be acting completely out of character. Maybe coming into a complete stranger's room shows a loss of judgement. And she did say she felt drowsy and confused..."

At this point Musichetta felt compelled to interrupt, making him stop and look round at her. "From what you're saying I gather you're worried I have some sort of disease? What exactly is it you think I have? When I said I was drowsy, I rather meant that it was late and I'm tired, I haven't lost my judgement, you seemed nice and I was getting soaked outside in that storm so it seemed the lesser of two evils to come in here and... What was the other thing?"

He went bright red. "I... Umm... Nothing. Sorry."

"You don't have to apologise. I think it's sweet that you are worried about me," Musichetta said kindly. Something about the concerned face of her new acquaintance made her get up and take his hand. She squeezed it gently and pulled him back over to his chair.

"I wasn't worried, I was just...," he mumbled as he sat down tailing off with a glance in her direction to check if he'd offended her.

"Wondering?"

"Exactly."

There was a rather awkward silence where neither of them could think of anything casual to say.

After several minutes of staring vaguely into the fire Joly broke the silence. "So you feel fine then?"

Musichetta realised she was still holding his hand and quickly let go of it. "Perfectly, thank you." She began to wonder why he was so obsessed with health. He was definitely too young to be a doctor but she couldn't think of another reason for knowing so many symptoms. She wasn't even sure what they were the symptoms of if she was being perfectly honest. With a slight frown the young woman studied him again.

"You're sure? No difficulty breathing or muscle pain or joint pain or headaches or nausea or wheezing or chest pain or coughing or...," Joly continued oblivious to her curiosity.

"No, I'm perfectly alright. As far as I know I don't have any of those things and no limbs or body parts seem to have dropped off, so I'm sure I'll be fine."

"Sorry. I'm being ridiculous again." Joly offered her an apologetic shrug. "I get like that sometimes. Bossuet says it drives him insane, but I really can't help it. I just sort of... panic. He's the only person who can get me to calm down again and even then I'm never entirely convinced. It's laughable really." He sighed dejectedly. "It all comes with being chronically ill. You start to worry about your health all the time, even when logically you know there isn't anything the matter, at least nothing you can do anything about. The tiniest thing sets it off, like a headache or a cough and then within the next few hours you have suddenly developed five times the amount of symptoms, all of them more horrible than the last, and are convinced that you will expire in the near future. The trials of being a hypochondriac."

With a hopefully casual laugh Musichetta hurriedly steered the conversation away from diseases before Joly could tell her what he thought he had or worse what she might have caught wandering about in the middle of a storm. "Who's Bossuet?"

"A good friend of mine. He lives here most of the time, but he's staying with a different friend at the moment. You should meet him sometime. I think you two would get on brilliantly." Joly looked suitably distracted and cheered up at the mention of his friend.

Feeling reassured that she wouldn't be asked any more questions about her health Musichetta relaxed and looked around the small, cosy room. "Your room is so tidy. Mine is always a complete mess. I try and keep everything tidy but it only ever works for a few days, then I get bored of clearing up and forget again. I don't know how you do it, especially with two people living here," she commented, playing with the corner of the blanket she was wrapped in.

Back to his cheerful self Joly laughed. "Trust me, I'm just as bad. It's only tidy because it has to be. One of the hazards of living with Bossuet, I'm afraid. He has to be the clumsiest person I've ever met."

Sure he must be exaggerating Musichetta giggled. Nobody could be that bad. A little bit of mess never hurt anyone. "So you keep it tidy so that there's nothing for him to trip over?"

"Trip over, bang into, smash, knock off, slip on..." Joly rolled his eyes and smiled fondly.

"Is he really that bad?"

He shook his head in mock despair. "Worse, trust me."

There was a momentary lull in the conversation where Joly watched the beautiful woman curled in the armchair beside him as she tapped her elegant fingers on the arm of her seat. It struck him how lovely her eyes looked in the firelight and how soft and silky her hair was. He had the sudden overwhelming urge to run his fingers through it but quickly folded them together in his lap and tried to think of something to say to her. "Would you like something to eat? You must be hungry. I think I've still got some bread and cheese left over somewhere...," he said eventually and quickly stood up to search in one of the desk draws for the food he had been forced to store there since his clumsy friend had smashed his cupboard knocking it over when trying to move it.

"Maybe a little bit hungry. I'm mainly just tired." As she said it, Musichetta realised exactly how tired she actually was. For some strange reason she hadn't really noticed before, but now that she had, she was surprised she was still able to keep her eyes open and hadn't started snoring right there in the armchair. She quickly stifled a yawn.

"Would you like to go to bed?", Joly asked. It took a second for him to realise what it sounded like he was implying. When he did, he blushed furiously and shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "I didn't mean that how it sounded. I just meant..." Unable to continue, he stared at her in horror.

It struck Musichetta how sweet he looked when he was worried. She had no doubt that he was only trying to be kind and hadn't meant what he thought it sounded like so she quickly reassured him:"I know. You don't seem like that kind of man."

With a sigh of relief that she hadn't taken his question the wrong way Joly relaxed again. "Thank you, I think."

Despite the offer to stay Musichetta felt like she was intruding and had better be going home. After all he was a stranger and she couldn't really make him go to all that trouble for her. "Are you sure I can stay here? I really don't want to be an inconvenience. I'm sure the rain has eased off by now and I could get home." She got slowly to her feet, reluctant to go back out into the cold and rain again.

Joly jumped to his feet as well and caught her hand. "The storm is as fierce as ever." At this point he paused and checked his pulse again. "Only now it's dark. I couldn't possibly let you walk home alone in this weather." He looked genuinely upset by the idea of her leaving.

"But...," Musichetta tried to protest, realising with surprise that she didn't actually want to go. It wasn't just the thought of being out at night it was something else as well. She didn't want to leave him. This thought shocked her. She had only just met the man and didn't know anything about him but now she was feeling sad at having to say goodbye to him. Hurriedly she forced a smile onto her face. "I couldn't possibly..."

Laughing Joly interrupted, "You're staying here and that's final. You can have my bed. I've got some work to do, so I probably wouldn't have got any sleep anyway."

Unsure if he was making it up to be kind to her or not Musichetta frowned. "You have to work all night? What on earth do you do that means you have to stay up so late?"

Joly shrugged and let go of her hand to wander across to his desk. "Well, technically it's not actual work. I'm a student."

"Really? What are you studying?", she wanted to know. It wasn't actually surprising now she thought about it. Of course he was a student with the amount of books filling his room and his intelligent way of talking.

"Medicine." He gestured to the bookshelf nearest her that was crammed with volumes of all shapes and sizes on anatomy, surgical procedures, diseases and other relevant topics.

Well at least that explained the skull. Musichetta examined the books beside her with interest for a few seconds. Then she remembered their conversation from earlier. "Is that really a wise choice? If you yourself admit you're a hypochondriac, isn't studying medicine just going to make that worse?"

"Probably. Unfortunately I also find it fascinating and being able to help people is a wonderful thing. It's all I ever wanted to do, become a doctor." His voice reflected the passion he clearly felt for his chosen subject of study and his face lit up as he talked.

"To help people?"

"Yes and because it's interesting. Also it can't hurt to know what diseases there are and the symptoms. Then if I get any symptoms I can diagnose the disease early and maybe do something about it before it's too late." As he said this the medical student checked his pulse yet again almost as if he didn't realise he was doing it.

Musichetta couldn't help laughing. "You are hopeless!"

Taking a book down from one of the shelves and playing with the pages Joly grinned. "That's what Bossuet says as well."

"Maybe your friend and I have more in common than I thought."

"I did say the pair of you would get on brilliantly together," Joly beamed happily. Then he recalled her saying she was tired and thought he had better let her get some sleep. "The bed is just through there." He waved his hand in the direction of the door across the room. "You can close the door and I promise not to come in. If you need anything just call, I'll be right here."

"I will do." Musichetta crossed the room to the door he had indicated. "Oh, and Joly?" The young woman paused, her hand on the door handle and looked back over her shoulder with an enchanting smile.

He looked up from the book he had just opened. "Yes?"

"Thank you. For everything."

A bright smile lit up the student's face."It's nothing. Good night and sleep well." And with that he sat down at the desk and turned his attention to the books and notes in front of him.

The next morning it took Musichetta a minute to remember where she was. As she opened her eyes, yawning widely she found herself in a strange room with light flooding in through the window, the curtains being only half closed. The bed was positioned in the middle of the room, more bookcases and a chest of drawers lined the walls and a small table stood to one side of the bed with a glass of water, a large medical textbook and an apple lying on it. A chair stood in one corner, or at least what had once been a chair. One of the legs was now cracked and the seat seemed to have given way. Idly, Musichetta wondered if this was down to the friend Joly had been telling her about.

Slowly she rolled out of bed and reached for her dress that she had moved to the chest of drawers to dry. It was now only slightly damp so she put it on again and tried her best, without a hairbrush, to do something with her tangled, messy hair. The attempt wasn't completely successful but at least she looked a little more presentable than the night before. Glancing down at herself one last time she made her way over to the door and pushed it open.

The small room looked much the same as the evening before, the only difference was that the fire had gone out and even more papers seemed to be spread across the desk and surrounding area. Joly was still sat at his desk where she had left him, book open in front of him, busily labelling a sketch of what looked like a human skeleton. He looked exhausted with dark rings under his slightly bloodshot eyes and didn't even look up when she entered.

Musichetta waited for a second in the doorway for him to notice her presence. When he didn't respond, she walked over to the desk and said happily: "Good morning, Joly."

He started up out of his chair with a yelp, dropping his pen which splashed ink all over the skeleton. "What?! Who?! Where?!" Joly whipped round to face his guest, a startled expression on his face. Realising who it was, the young man's face relaxed into a weary smile. "Good morning, Musichetta. Did you sleep alright?"

"Wonderfully, which is clearly more than can be said for you. You look like you haven't slept a wink all night. Sorry if I startled you."

He waved away her apology and grinned broadly. "That's because I haven't."

"When you said you still had work to do, I didn't realise you meant you'd stay up all night to finish it. In my experience most students aren't as hard-working as that." Musichetta picked up some of the papers on the desk and idly flicked through them. He had nice handwriting she noticed and his notes were well organised and easy to follow.

"In your experience?" Joly pushed his chair back from the desk and stretched his aching muscles.

"Yes, don't look so surprised. I know quite a lot of students. It's just about the only way to guarantee an intelligent conversation round here. A girl can only listen to so many stories about cobbling or lace-making or similarly tedious jobs," she answered with a mischievous grin.

The student laughed. "If I'd know it was intelligent conversation you wanted I'd have tried a bit harder to sound intelligent." He paused, obviously thinking hard, chewing on the end of the pen he had retrieved from where it had rolled under the human skull, face screwed up in concentration.

It was Musichetta's turn to burst out laughing. "You're replaying the whole conversation from yesterday evening in your head to see how you sounded, aren't you?", she giggled.

A look of mock outrage appeared on Joly's face. "No, I most certainly am not!", he exclaimed indignantly, but he was grinning slightly. "Well possibly, but I'd hate to have disappointed you and ruined your high opinion of students."

"Don't be silly." She didn't mention that he was the nicest student she had ever met but the thought did occur to her.

"If you're hungry breakfast is on the table over there," Joly offered, waving a hand in the direction of the table.

"I really can't. I've got to find the house I was supposed to go to yesterday and tell my client that I ruined her dresses. If I'm lucky I might always be able to convince her to let me remake them, but I doubt it." Musichetta shrugged. "That's life, I suppose." She couldn't help but throw a slightly regretful glance at the ash in the fireplace.

Noticing the direction of her gaze, Joly tried to distract her. "Are you sure? You could take something with you and eat it on the way," he suggested sounding almost apologetic.

"Only if it's not too much trouble..."

"Of course not."

"You don't happen to know how to get to this addressfrom here, do you?", the young woman asked suddenly holding out a scrap of paper to him.

Joly took it and studied it for a second before looking up and nodding. "I'll take you there, if you like. It'd do me good to get some fresh air after sitting at a desk all night," he commented.

Musichetta was delighted. "Thank you!", she exclaimed happily.

It only took Joly a few seconds to get ready. Once he had grabbed his hat, cane, coat and two small bread rolls for breakfast the pair set out into the dazzling morning sunshine.

They walked in silence, each of them caught up in their own thoughts eating the bread Joly had brought. Musichetta was reflecting on how lucky she had been that she had tripped in that particular alley at that particular time and met Joly. It was worth the stress of being lost and the risk of catching a chill, she thought happily and glanced sideways at her companion. He was strolling along whistling slightly under his breath and he couldn't have looked more adorable if he'd tried. She sighed, hoping he liked her as much as she already liked him. She indulged in fantasising about seeing him again as she walked.

All too soon they arrived at the right house. Dragging her feet Musichetta walked up the steps to the front door. She was just raising her hand to knock when Joly finally broke the silence: "Well, goodbye then. And good luck with the dresses." He was stood further back from the door, still in the street, hands stuffed in his pockets, trying almost too hard to look casual.

She smiled at him. "Thanks." There was another brief pause in which neither of them moved or said anything. "Joly?", Musichetta asked eventually, slightly uncertainly.

"Yes?"

"We will see each other again, won't we? I mean, only if you want to...", she tailed off hopefully, looking down at Joly with a pleading look in her large, brown eyes.

His answer came almost immediately. "I'd love to," he beamed. For a second the student just stood there, grinning like an idiot, which Musichetta found unbelievable endearing. With a smile he continued: "I was going to go to the theatre with Bossuet tomorrow, but he can't make it." He grimaced. "Long story. Would you like to come instead? You can't possibly leave me to go alone, not after everything I've done for you." His eyes twinkled slightly with laughter as he spoke.

She threw him a mischievous grin. "It would be rude of me not to."

"So you'll come?", he asked, his voice going from cheerful to nervous again.

Musichetta laughed and ran back down the steps towards him. She threw her arms round his neck, unable to resist the temptation to hug him any longer. Joly looked slightly shocked but pleased at the same time. "Promise," she giggled, lightly kissing his cheek.

"You know where I live now, if you meet me there at 7 o'clock we should get there in plenty of time. And we could always go to dinner afterwards, if you like."

"That'd be lovely." Musichetta tried her hardest to keep the excitement out of her voice.

"Well, that's settled then," Joly said. He pulled out his watch and glanced at it. "And now I'd better be going. I've got a lecture to attend in half an hour."

"Goodbye and thank you for everything," Musichetta whispered in his ear and brushed her lips against his cheek again. She was so happy, she didn't even notice him blush slightly.

"Until tomorrow and it was my pleasure." He bowed to her and gave her one last wave before vanishing into the crowd.

Feeling happier than she had in a long time Musichetta turned and skipped back up the stairs, already looking forward to the seeing Joly again soon.


	2. Chapter 2

Author's Note

**_Hi :) Finally we've finished chapter 2. All the horrible, disgusting medical stuff is Imi's fault not mine. :D It makes me feel a bit sick actually and she finds it really interesting so I left that bit to her. (She's like my very own Joly, a total hypochondriac. :D Finds medical stuff fascinating and reads all about it and then freaks herself out that she's got something if she even gets so much as a headache. :D) That's about all from me. Hope you enjoy this chapter. - Love Hali xx  
_**

_Hi. Thanks to everyone who has followed this story so far and thanks to NightenGale10 for your review, I'm glad you enjoyed chapter 1 ;) I hope you all enjoy chapter 2 and thanks for reading ;) - Love Imi xx _

_P.S. Sorry about all the '__horrible, disgusting medical stuff' as Hali put it. If you're freaked out by stuff like that I suggest reading it with your eyes shut ;P I wouldn't want to upset anyone. (It's not that bad really just Hali is really, really freaky and faints at the sight of a paper cut...)_

___P.P.S. Oh and a word of warning: There is some violence in this chapter but it's nothing really bad, just a small brawl ;P_

* * *

She needed to find Joly. It was all Musichetta could think about as she hurried through the streets of Paris. She needed to talk to him. As one of her closest friends Joly had promised to always be there if she ever had a problem, however small so when she had seen _him _Musichetta had immediately turned and run to look for the student, knowing she would feel safe with him.

_Him_, her father... Musichetta shuddered and quickened her step. She hadn't seen him for years, not since her mother died and she had finally had the courage to run away from home. "No! Don't think about it. He's gone now," she told herself firmly as she turned into the street she was heading for, almost ran to the right building and hurried inside.

Rushing as she was to find Joly, Musichetta almost crashed into his landlady who was busily sweeping the stairs. The old woman glared up at her from under thick, bushy eyebrows and let out a stream of abuse under her breath, stooping to retrieve her broom which Musichetta had knocked to the floor. She was a truly hideous creature. The shape of her head vaguely resembled a potato, the thin, grey hair fell in wispy clumps and many patches of her scalp were visible through it, her eyes were sunken and almost black in colour. There was a constant malicious glint in them and something about them gave the woman an unpleasantly devious countenance. The mouth, if you could indeed describe it as a mouth, was lopsided with very few teeth and shrivelled, greying gums. She was short and stocky with large hands and feet, far to big for her body and short stubby fingers. Her dress was a dirty brown and bulged unflatteringly, giving the old woman a strangely lumpy appearance.

"Sorry," the younger woman mumbled uncomfortably before squeezing past and hurrying off up the stairs and along the corridor. Something about the landlady gave her the creeps.

Practically throwing herself at Joly's door, Musichetta hammered on it with her small fist. "Joly, it's me, let me in." No answer. "Joly!" Still no answer.

Musichetta frowned and knocked again, more calmly this time. Joly was never out at this time. Where could he possibly have got to? He had promised her he'd be there... Again, no one came to the door.

Shaking her head Musichetta retraced her steps back down the hall towards the staircase. As she approached she distinctly heard the noise of a broom scratching on wood and quickened her pace slightly. The woman must still be there - she was in luck. Reaching the top of the stairs she caught sight of Joly's landlady bent double muttering to herself. "Is Joly not here?", Musichetta called down hopefully, raising her voice so as to be heard over the broom and the old crone's monologue.

Looking irritated at the interruption the old woman straightened up and lent on the handle of her broom. "Joly?..." She frowned crossly for a moment trying to recall who Joly was. "Oh, the medical student. He went out about an hour ago now with that friend of his." The landlady clearly didn't think much of this friend because her frown turned into a furious glare and she began savagely sweeping the steps again, muttering to herself under her breath, taking no further notice of Musichetta.

There was a long and awkward pause where Musichetta waited to see if the old woman would elaborate but she seemed to have forgotten there was somebody else there as she ranted quietly to herself. Eventually Musichetta asked: "Do you know when he'll be back?"

The landlady glanced up with an indifferent shrug and said in an icy voice, "I really couldn't say." From the way she said it it sounded like she was very tempted to add that she couldn't care less but instead she snapped her mouth shut and continued sweeping with renewed fury.

"Did he say where he was going?", Musichetta ventured to ask after a second.

"His friend mentioned some café, I think," the woman snapped and with that she stomped away down the hallway and into a room at the far end, slamming the door loudly behind her.

Musichetta was left standing on the stairs looking shocked. "Thank you for your... umm... help," she called after the old landlady but her voice was drowned out by the door banging shut and the sound of somebody crashing around the room inside.

Fortunately for her Musichetta had a good idea which café it was likely to be as Joly went there almost every day to meet his friends and she had even been there once. It wasn't far so she set off walking briskly and glancing from side to side every now and then to check that _he_ was nowhere in sight.

She hated this, having to look over her shoulder every few seconds and feeling nervous and jumpy. She had thought this was all behind her. With a huge effort Musichetta pushed the gloomy thoughts from her head and focussed on her surroundings. Across the road there was a little boy playing with a cute, fluffy dog, there was a young woman carrying a basket coming towards her wearing a very nice dress, an old man was making his way slowly along the street ahead of her, a tall man in a dark coat and a dark hat was coming out of a side-street.

She froze staring at the tall man, her hands beginning to shake and sweat trickling down her spine. A young man pushed roughly past her muttering some insult and she realised she was stood in the way of people trying to get past. Trembling she forced herself to start walking again, her eyes fixed on the figure ahead of her. "Look calm and natural and he won't notice you," Musichetta told herself desperately but she just couldn't make her muscles do what she wanted.

At that moment the man turned around and the young woman caught a glimpse of his face. With a sigh of relief she sank down onto the nearest doorstep, almost in tears. It wasn't _him_. Just a vague resemblance when seen from behind. "This is stupid," she thought to herself, "I'm panicking because I saw a tall man in a dark coat. I need to calm down." What she actually felt she really needed was to find Joly so she tried to get up. Her legs were shaking so violently that it took her several attempts to stand up but when she did she jogged the rest of the way to the café without looking to either side.

From outside a strange crashing could be heard but Musichetta was too upset to really notice let alone care so she just pushed the door open and entered the café, really hoping that Joly would actually be there. The scene that greeted her was rather alarming and instantly distracted her from her personal worries.

The café was in utter chaos. On one side of the room a pool table had been overturned. Tables and chairs had been knocked over, some of them broken, and smashed bottles and plates littered the floor covered in trampled food. A trail of wine was running down one of the walls and pooling on the floor below, the window had been broken and one of the waitresses was sobbing hysterically cowered in a corner. And in the midst of all this chaos about 10 young men were fighting.

A tall, handsome man, beautifully dressed apart from a missing hat was wrestling with a large, balding man whom he had in a strangle-hold and who was turning an unattractive shade of scarlet. On top of one of the tables a bald man was exchanging punches with a thin, wiry, little man and a short, stout one. A muscular individual in a ridiculous green waistcoat was raising a chair to smash over his opponent's head and behind the pool table Joly was busily trying to dodge a ferocious-looking man who was clutching half a smashed bottle and stabbing at his stomach with it.

"Watch out, Joly!", the man in the green waistcoat called out as he brought the chair crashing down on the head of his rather startled-looking adversary. The young man slumped to the floor completely unconscious with a trail of blood seeping out from under his hair. Bits of shattered chair flew everywhere, one narrowly missing Joly's ear, another hitting the bald man standing on the table squarely between the eyes and knocking him to the floor.

"Bossuet!", the medical student exclaimed horrified, dodging another thrust of the bottle, this one aimed at his face. "Bahorel, what were you thinking?!" He ducked as the man opposite him gave up on the bottle, grabbed a pool cue and swung it at Joly's head.

Supremely unbothered, the man Joly had called Bahorel shrugged and jumped at the nearest person, the short, shout man, aiming a punch at his stomach. He, however neatly sidestepped causing the punch to go wide and Bahorel to lose his balance and topple forwards. Pressing his advantage, the smaller man brought his knee up into the other's face. Bahorel's head snapped back, blood gushing from his nose as he let out a grunt of surprise and pain, somewhat muffled by the blood. Nevertheless, he immediately dived back into the fight, not seeming to care about the injury or the blood which was staining his formerly green waistcoat a bright red.

By this time the bald man had recovered enough to get up. He still looked slightly dazed and an angry, red welt was forming on his forehead but he staggered back to his feet. "Don't worry, Joly, I'm..." His sentence was cut short by the wiry, little man grabbing him from behind and smashing him face-first into a wall. With a choking cough he sunk to the floor again, where he was promptly stepped on by the well-dressed man and his opponent, who had by now succeeded in freeing himself and was seemingly furious about having been restrained in such a way.

The dandy ducked just in time to avoid a well-aimed plate and dodged behind a table, shoving one of the chairs into the path of his livid assailant. "Now, now, there's no point getting...", he leapt to one side as another plate smashed against the wall where he had just been, "...yourself...", he snatched up a tray off one of the few remaining unbroken tables to use as a shield to avoid being hit by yet more flying pottery, "...all worked up...", the young man had to practically throw himself flat to the floor as with a roar his enraged foe grabbed the nearest table and hurled it in his direction. It missed by the narrowest of narrow margins and crashed into Joly's pool table, trapping the medical student between it and the wall. "...about nothing," the well-dressed man finished leaping with a loud grunt at the balding man and managing to knock him off balance and into the wall. Locked in a furious wrestling match the pair crashed to the floor pulling a picture off the wall and taking several chairs with them.

Joly was squirming furiously trying to free himself as the ferocious-looking man advanced over the fallen pool table towards him. He had picked up his bottle again and was grinning maliciously. "Say goodbye to your eyes", the man snarled, saliva dripping down his chin, eyes popping horribly. Joly let out a petrified whimper and did the only thing he could think of. He grabbed one of the pool balls, which had all rolled to his end of the table when it fell, and threw it as hard as he could at the advancing figure. Being trapped between a wall and a pool table did nothing for his aim, but he still managed to hit the larger man right in the groin. With an agonized gasp his attacker slid to the floor, dropping the bottle in the process and then landing on it as he fell. He let out a shriek as the glass embedded itself deeply in his leg and rolled off the pool table groaning and whining in agony.

"Nice aim, Jolllly," the bald man commented. He had got up, now with a bloody nose and a black eye as well as the massive bruise on his forehead, and was trying to pull the table away from the wall to free Joly.

"Trust me, my dear Bossuet, it wasn't deliberate," Joly laughed, "it was more terror than aim." He managed to tug himself free and clambered over the table to join his friend. "Are you alright? You look terr... argh!" The small, wiry man had sneaked up behind them with a chair and whacked the pair of them round the heads with it. Both friends toppled in opposite directions as their enemy launched himself on top of Joly, fastening his hands round the hypochondriac's throat.

In the meantime Bahorel and his stout, little opponent had moved on from punching each other and were now having a bizarre sort of duel with pool cues, wielding the cues like swords. It was not a very effective fighting technique and all they had managed to achieve was to smash the other window, knock over the last remaining table and take massive chunks out of the plaster on the walls. In addition to that, they were showering pieces of wood everywhere, as the cues got gradually shorter with each hit. Both combatants were covered in blood and bruises and Bahorel had a large splinter of wood embedded in his arm.

"What are you doing, Bahorel?", the hatless young man yelled from the floor, "would you just finish him off? I could do with some help here, this fellow is a maniac!" The pair were still grappling with each other, but the balding man seemed to be gaining the upper hand. He had managed to get on top and was showering punches on the unprotected head and chest of the young man.

"I'll be with you shortly, Courfeyrac," his friend panted, swinging his cue with renewed vigour but unfortunately missing the man opposite him and whacking a chunk out of the wall, "just as soon as I've finished with him." Courfeyrac gave no reply, he was too busy trying to fend off another frenzied attack from the man sat on his chest.

At the same time the bald man, Bossuet, seemed to have almost recovered from the chair incident and was clambering to his feet. "My head!", he moaned rubbing his temples, "it feels like I've been up all night drinking with Grantaire only worse." Straightening up, he glanced around the room taking in the scene. None of his friends seemed to be doing very well. Courfeyrac was trapped and being badly beaten, Bahorel was still unable to gain an advantage over his adversary and Joly was choking and gasping for air on the floor. Bossuet hovered for a moment, uncertain of what to do and who to help. Bahorel looked like he was coping, but both Joly and Courfeyrac were in need of aid. With a sudden flash of inspiration Bossuet dived across the room towards Courfeyrac. He had a plan.

In the centre of the room Bahorel was still wielding his pool cue like a man possessed. Both men seemed to be exhausted, but neither of them was giving in. With another massive effort Bahorel swung the cue up above his head and brought it crashing down on the stout man. It didn't quite have the desired effect. Instead of knocking him out, it just smashed both weapons and knocked the ceiling light off. A shower of glass and wood rained down around them as with an almighty bang, the large light crashed to the floor, directly on top of Bossuet, who gave a startled cry and collapsed in a heap buried by the heavy object.

This disaster did have one useful effect however, it distracted the man strangling Joly. He jumped and looked over his shoulder to see what had happened, not paying attention to the medical student for a second. Joly took this opportunity to free his arm, fling it out to the side, grab a glass bottle and smash it over the small man's head. With a squawk, the wiry, little man toppled forwards unconscious, landing ungracefully right on top of Joly who shoved him off and clambered to his feet, a little unsteadily. "Bahorel, Courfeyrac, Bossuet?", he asked, his voice sounding rather croaky and barely coming out as more than a hoarse whisper.

The dust began to settle revealing the full extent of the mayhem. Bahorel was now wrestling with the stout man and Courfeyrac still seemed to be losing badly, the café was utterly destroyed. Bossuet was lying on the floor half trapped beneath a large ceiling lamp and there was blood everywhere.

In a few strides Joly bounded across the room and kicked the man on top of Courfeyrac in the side with all his might. There was a whooshing sound as the air rushed from the man's lungs and he too sagged the the floor clutching at his ribs, his face turning a nasty pale colour.

"Many thanks, Jolllly," his friend gasped, allowing himself to be helped up, "he was stronger than he looked."

Joly nodded and grinned in acknowledgement. "We should help Bahorel," he stated and gestured to where their friend was still locked in a furious embrace with his chubby adversary.

"We should," Courfeyrac agreed, studying their one remaining enemy, "I would take my hat of to that man, if that brute," he kicked the balding man in the ribs again, "hadn't destroyed it in our fight. I wouldn't have thought he had it in him to be a match for Bahorel. Just goes to show appearances can be deceiving." The pair of them walked calmly over to where the two men were still fighting, Joly picking up a table leg, Courfeyrac grabbing hold of a painting in a heavy frame.

Grinning at his friends Bahorel broke away from the fight. "Shall we?", he asked with a smirk and the three of them moved forwards slowly.

Seeing the three friends advancing slowly on him, the short, shout man let out a cry and dashed towards the door, pushing roughly past Musichetta in his hurry to escape. Through the broken windows a portly, bloody figure could be seen puffing his way down the street as fast as his stubby legs would carry him.

Bahorel let out a burst of laughter.

Joly turned away from the window and surveyed the destruction surrounding them with an amused grin. "That was not a success," he said cheerfully, picked up the nearest table and stood it back in it's proper place against the wall. "In an strange way it was fun though."

Bahorel grabbed the nearest chair that had survived intact and threw himself into it with a satisfied sigh. "I thought that went rather well actually. Nothing better than a good fight to liven up an otherwise boring day." He lent back and closed his eyes, oblivious to the chaos they had just caused. Behind him the last picture still on the wall slowly tilted to one side and fell to the floor with a loud crash.

Across the room Courfeyrac had retrieved his once fashionable hat from under the fallen pool table and was holding it between finger and thumb and looking at it mournfully. It was impossible to tell what colour the hat had once been because by now it was a revolting shade of dirty sludge. The hat had lost it's shape and there was a massive tear right across it. Courfeyrac turned and marched across to his friend to wave the rag under his nose. "This was all your fault, Bahorel. Just look at my new hat!", he exclaimed in mock outrage.

Lazily Bahorel opened one eye and glanced at the offending item. "Oh, do stop complaining. I'll buy you a new hat if you like."

Courfeyrac slightly childishly hit him with the hat which started a friendly argument about who was to blame for the fight in the first place, with Courfeyrac claiming it was Bahorel and Bahorel blaming Joly because he wasn't listening to them so was unlikely to protest.

In the meantime Joly had been hurriedly picking up damaged furniture and attempting to make the room look slightly more organised. As he lifted up a table he happened to notice Musichetta still frozen in the doorway watching them. Joly's face broke into a wide grin and he crossed the room to give her a warm hug. "Chetta, what are you doing here?", he wanted to know as soon as he let go of her.

Already the fright from earlier had worn off entirety and Musichetta felt better just being with her friend. She had been too worried that something might happen to him to think about anything else and the events from earlier seemed incredibly far away and silly to her now. She was so relieved that Joly seemed to be unhurt that she threw her arms around him again not caring what his friends thought. Eventually she let go and took a step back, noticing as she did so that Joly had gone a little pink. "I was looking for you and your landlady mentioned a café so I thought I'd try this one."

Joly pulled a face at the mention of his landlady and then grinned. "Come and meet my friends." He took her hand and carefully helped her over the mess on the floor. "Bahorel, Courfeyrac, I'd like you to introduce you to Musichetta, a friend of mine." They stopped beside the still arguing students who broke off from their row and glanced up at her.

Bahorel nodded and then ignored her but Courfeyrac bowed dramatically and said in his most charming voice, "An honour to meet you." He took her hand and kissed it with a flourish, making Joly frown slightly and Musichetta blush.

"Pleased to meet you, too," she stammered looking embarrassed which made Courfeyrac laugh.

"By the way, where is Bossuet?," Joly asked suddenly, peering around the room in alarm, "I couldn't see what happened to him with that thug strangling me."

Shrugging casually Bahorel waved a hand in the direction of the fallen light. "Over there under that ceiling-light. It fell on his head"

"What?! And you didn't tell me?!", the medical student exploded, staring at his friend as if he had gone completely insane. Hurriedly he turned to Musichetta, "I'd better go and check on poor Bossuet, make sure he's alright." He set off across the room narrowly missing tripping over a smashed table, then almost breaking an ankle slipping on a fallen plate. "Then I'll have a look at you two," he called back over his shoulder once he had regained his balance.

On reaching his friend he crouched down in front of him, shoving what remained of the light to one side. "Bossuet, can you hear me?", Joly asked softly.

"Joly?", his friend whispered back, "my head is killing me." He gave a wan smile and feebly tried to sit up.

"So I don't have to ask you if you have a headache then?", Joly joked, "hold still a moment while I look at you." Bossuet relaxed back onto the floor with a groan as the medical student began his examination.

"Can you tell me how you feel?", Joly requested, his fingers gently probing Bossuet's head.

His patient whimpered under his breath and bit his lip when Joly touched the top of his head where there was already a nasty-looking lump forming. When the medical student moved his hand Bossuet looked around the room seeming to struggle to focus for a second then said slowly, "Confused. I'm not sure where I am or how I got here."

"Can you remember what happened?"

Bossuet shook his head with an apologetic grin and instantly regretted moving, so quickly lay still again. "I have no idea. All I remember is waking up with a splitting headache and you bending over me asking if I could hear you."

"Retrograde amnesia by the sound of it, I think maybe you've got a concussion." Biting his lip and looking concerned Joly reminded himself of the symptoms of concussion in his head.

"Charming." Even with his injuries Bossuet still managed to look relatively cheerful. He reached out a hand and placed it on Joly's arm in a supportive way, just to show him that he wasn't really that badly hurt and to tell him not to worry. Then he closed his eyes and tried to relax and forget about the pounding headache that was making it very hard to think. He wished Joly would stop asking questions so he could go to sleep.

Sympathetically Joly took his friend's outstretched hand and squeezed it very gently to get his attention again. "Any other symptoms? Do you feel dizzy or nauseous at all?"

Forcing his eyes open again Bossuet looked up at his best friend. "The room's spinning."

"Is that a yes?", the medical student demanded.

"Yes. I feel a bit dazed as well but I suppose that's to be expected." Bossuet attempted to shrug cheerfully but found it harder than it looked when lying down, so gave up and just grinned at Joly instead, trying his best to act normally.

Clearly not even slightly fooled Joly continued with his questions. "Double vision? Seeing stars? Anything like that?"

"I'm not sure," Bossuet said uncertainly.

At this Joly frowned and looked mildly confused. "How can you not be sure if you have double vision? Can you see two of me?", he asked seriously, ignoring Courfeyrac who had wandered over, settled himself beside them and let out an unhelpful snort of laughter at Bossuet's answer.

"No." That was an easier question for Bossuet's confused brain to answer. He could definitely only see one Joly.

"Any stars or flashing lights?", Joly wanted to know.

"I can sort of see stars, I guess," Bossuet told him wondering absent-mindedly when he'd feel better and be back to his normal self. The headache was really starting to annoy him, or it would be if it wasn't so bad.

"You're not vomiting and...", Joly began.

"I feel like I'm about to thought," his patient interrupted, looking slightly mournful.

Joly gave an exasperated sigh and rolled his eyes affectionately. "Bossuet, I asked you if you felt nauseous before."

"I know, sorry. My brain doesn't seem to be working properly."

"You did just get hit rather hard over the head by a ceiling light," Courfeyrac pointed out happily, leaning over so Bossuet could see him without turning his head. He looked far too good to have just been in a fight and sounded far too loud and cheery to be talking to somebody with a headache. Jealously Bossuet observed that his cravat was still perfectly fastened, his hair looked artfully ruffled without looking scruffy and his clothes had somehow made it through the brawl without getting dirty, let alone damaged.

On the other hand Bossuet looked bruised and battered like he had just been trampled on by a herd of stampeding elephants. At some point during the fight he'd managed to lose his cravat entirely, his coat now had a long tear down one sleeve and the shirt under it had several smaller rips in it, his waistcoat was stained with blood and he was covered in a thick layer of dirt. To top off this rather moth-eaten appearance his eye was swollen shut and he had a massive lump on his head. Bossuet sighed. "Thanks for that, Courfeyrac. I would never have noticed if you hadn't pointed that out to me."

"My pleasure." Courfeyrac laughed and after a second Bossuet joined in, despite not feeling well.

Joly did not look impressed with their jokey behaviour when he was trying to diagnose a patient. "Would you two be quiet? I'm trying to concentrate," he scolded.

Looking sheepish Bossuet stopped laughing. "Sorry," he muttered. He wasn't feeling too good so it was a relief when Joly sent Courfeyrac to sit with Bahorel. He had been feeling a bit crowded with his friend looming over him.

Meanwhile Joly was still checking him for signs of concussion. "Your speech isn't slurred, but you do have a slightly vacant stare..."

Bahorel interrupted him, "He always looks like that." He and Courfeyrac burst out laughing, ignoring the withering look Joly threw them.

Bossuet couldn't look round at his two friends without feeling like the room was spinning around him so he contented himself with giving the spot on the ceiling he could see the evil eye and aiming a sarcastic, "Thanks," in their direction.

Joly grinned down at him, winked and threw a hat somebody had dropped in the fight at Bahorel and Courfeyrac, making them jump and promptly shutting them up. Bossuet just had time to snigger appreciatively at the yelp of surprise Bahorel let out before Joly returned to his professional self. "You don't seem to have any changes in behaviour or inappropriate emotional responses, do you?"

By now Bossuet just really wanted his friend to leave him alone and stop asking questions. It was making his headache worse. "I don't know. If I did would I realise it?", he asked grumpily.

Joly laughed. "Probably not."

His friend had such an infectious laugh that Bossuet couldn't help but join in. "There you go then, you'll have to tell me," he pointed out and gave the medical student a querying glance. Truthfully, he had no idea if he was behaving normally or not and the idea that he might not be and might not even realise it him scared him a little.

After a moment's consideration Joly said: "You seem perfectly normal to me."

From the other side of the room Courfeyrac piped up: "He's never normal." He grabbed the hat and hurled it back at Bossuet. Needless to say it missed and hit Joly on the back of the head. Both Courfeyrac and Bahorel burst into fits of laughter.

The other law student sniggered. "Thanks, with friends like you two...", he tailed of giving them both an icy glare, that didn't quite end up looking as threatening as he'd intended and just succeeded in making them laugh even harder.

"We try," Bahorel choked out between gasps.

"So, Jolllly, what's your diagnosis?" Bossuet decided the best course of action was to ignore them both. He didn't really feel in the mood for jokes after all. For a start his brain seemed incapable of coming up with a single intelligent retort and it was starting to annoy him.

"You have a mild concussion, I think. Which means..."

Courfeyrac stopped laughing to pull a mock-horrified face. "You _think_!?", he exclaimed, eyes round as coins.

"Be quiet, Courfeyrac," Joly grinned, "As I was saying, that means if we can find any, you need to apply ice to the injury for about half an hour every few hours." He ran his fingers gently over the lump on Bossuet's skull again, examining it carefully. "The swelling should go down quite quickly then."

That sounded almost positive. No horrible medicines, no nasty rules about things he wasn't allowed to do. It was almost too good to be true. "Is that it?", Bossuet wanted to know slightly suspiciously.

"No," his friend stated. Bossuet's heart sank. "You need to take plenty of rest. If you can, try and avoid stressful situations. No alcohol and don't do anything that might risk hurting your head again," Joly informed him, smiling slightly at the mutinous look on his best friend's face. The no alcohol part would hit him hard.

"He risks hurting his head just by being alive. Knowing him, any minute now the roof is going to cave in on him in a freak accident and...", Courfeyrac began teasing again. He was getting bored sat around in a destroyed café and wanted something entertaining to do. Winding up Bossuet or Joly or even better, both of them seemed like his best bet.

"Thank you, Courfeyrac, now please be quiet. I would say don't go back to your studies until you have recovered completely but you never study anyway, so that shouldn't be a problem...", Joly began again.

"Joly!", Bossuet exclaimed outraged struggling to sit up.

"He does have a point," Bahorel pointed out unhelpfully. He was still sat draped over the chair he had rescued and was surveying the scene with a mild, slightly bored interest. His left arm was hanging slightly unnaturally by his side and he seemed to be avoiding moving it too much.

"You do even less than me!", his fellow law student yelped indignantly, immediately wishing he hadn't. The combination of sitting up and a sudden loud noise made his head feel like someone was bashing it with a hammer. Mournfully Bossuet lay back down and screwed his eyes shut. Joly looked concerned and began fussing slightly, checking his pulse and inspecting the injury again.

Bahorel laughed, partly at Bossuet's comment, partly at Joly who in his minor panic was now checking completely unrelated body parts for injuries. "I didn't say avoiding studying wasn't the right course of action, I merely pointed out that Joly had a point."

"...And you can stay with me for while, just so I can check it doesn't get any worse. Have you injured anything else?", the hypochondriac seemed to have calmed down enough to remember what he was supposed to be doing.

Shaking his head Bossuet gave Joly's hand a squeeze. "I don't think so. My nose has stopped bleeding and there isn't anything you can do about bruises. I'm fine, Jolllly, thank you." He smiled up at his friend as warmly as he could manage to try and convince him that he actually wasn't that badly hurt.

"Good. You stay sat here while I check the others. Bahorel, what about you?" Joly seemed reassured and turned to beam encouragingly at his next patient.

The law student shook his head. "Nothing that won't heal. No broken bones, except maybe my nose and I still seem to have all my teeth." He stretched as he spoke, then casually moved his arms so that they were concealed behind his back and angled his left shoulder away from Joly, an innocent expression on his face.

Joly was not fooled. "Show me your arm."

Bahorel went pale, but smiled cheerfully, a slightly forced smile that didn't reach his eyes. "It's nothing," he shrugged casually, one shoulder not moving quite as it should, "just a scratch."

The medical student held out his hand, reaching for his friends injured arm. "Just show me."

"It's...", Bahorel began to protest.

His protest was interrupted by Joly grabbing his wrist and yanking his arm out from behind his back. "I know how you feel about doctors but this needs looking at." Joly's voice was firm. Carefully he examined the wound. It was quite long and very deep. A large shard of wood had been driven into Bahorel's upper arm, just below the shoulder angled upwards. The entry point was several inches above the elbow and the point had gone right up into the deltoid muscle. The bleeding was moderate, suggesting no major blood vessels had been ruptured and on careful inspection Joly concluded that the bones were also intact. The main problem was getting the wood out of the arm, without leaving splinters which could possibly cause infection.

Joly sighed. "Courfeyrac, could you fetch me some brandy?"

Courfeyrac looked mock-horrified. "Is that really a wise idea? You are supposed to be treating Bahorel and you know how you get if you drink too..."

"It's for his arm," the medical student interrupted coldly. He really didn't have time for his friend fooling around.; the sooner he got the wood out of Bahorel's arm, the better. And he was not looking forward to explaining what he was going to have to do to his patient.

At least Courfeyrac seemed to have got the message that now was a bad time to be silly, because he hurried off into the back room in search of the requested brandy.

"Bring a lamp back with you," Joly yelled after him, before turning back to Bahorel, a grim expression on his face. "You're not going to like this," he warned.

His fellow student shook his head, looking rather sick. "If you were thinking of explaining to me what you're about to do, forget it. I really don't want to know."

Their friend returned carrying the alcohol and a lamp. "Here."

Joly nodded in thanks and hissed: "Could you hold his arm down for me?" When Courfeyrac nodded, he straightened up and pulled a small bag out from under the table he had rescued. It had been the first thing he had retrieved when tidying the café, just in case anyone needed it. As it turned out, it was lucky he had. The medical student opened the bag, careful to keep his body between the patient and what he was doing, and got out several bandages and a sharp-looking knife about the length of his thumb.

Bahorel had gone a nasty shade of green and looked clammy. He was shaking slightly. "It's nothing would everyone stop making such a fuss," he whispered desperately.

"It is not nothing. If it's left untreated it may become infected and you might get gangrene and...", Courfeyrac began to object. He was stood slightly to one side waiting for Joly's signal and kept throwing worried glances at his friend.

"Alright, alright, just get on with it. Anything to shut Courfeyrac up," the law student hissed between gritted teeth.

Musichetta clutched at the door frame feeling faint. Surely Joly was not about to...

Turning round quickly before his friend could object, Joly gave Courfeyrac a brisk nod. The law student grabbed hold of his friend's arm and held it as tightly as he could while Joly made an incision along the length of the piece of wood. Bahorel howled and let out a string of rather colourful swear words aimed at both Courfeyrac and Joly, while trying to pull his arm free of Courfeyrac's grasp.

"Hold still!", the medical student instructed, "you'll only make it worse if you move."

Bahorel looked worse than ever. He had gone as white as a sheet and was drenched in sweat. "I knew I always hated doctors, you sadistic, ruthless bastard. You...", the stream of abuse continued but at least he stopped wrenching on his arm.

With a horrible squelch Joly pulled the wood free and dropped it to the floor. His patient went silent. Clearly the noise was too much for him. Bahorel retched.

"If you're going to be sick, mind your arm," Joly told him. The student had peeled back the edges of the wound and was checking for smaller splinters of wood still stuck in his friends arm.

"Have you nearly finished?", Bahorel croaked.

"Almost done," Joly tried to sound as cheerful as possible. Once he was satisfied he'd removed all the wood, he inspected the muscle injury. It was a quite nasty-looking tear, but should heal on it's own with plenty of rest. Better to leave it and not make it worse by poking around, Joly figured. He could always ask Combeferre what he thought later.

"I just need to wash the wound, disinfect it, then you'll need a few stitches and then you should be alright." Admittedly that wasn't exactly an encouraging list of things left to do. Poor Bahorel looked like he couldn't take much more. "Luckily it's not bleeding too much though," he added trying to at least make something sound positive.

It took him 5 minutes to carefully wash out the wound, a further 2 to disinfect it and a quarter of an hour to stitch the injury. By the time he had got to bandaging Bahorel's arm his friend was a mess. Joly had seen corpses look healthier than he did.

After what felt like an eternity he tied a knot in the bandage and grinned weakly at his friend. "There, that wasn't too bad," he commented in a feeble attempt to cheer him up.

Despite everything Bahorel still managed to find enough energy to swear at Joly and even aim a pathetic punch at him.

"You're welcome. Rest your arm as much as possible. The muscle will recover, but it needs a lot of rest. That means no getting into fights." He turned to face Courfeyrac. "Courfeyrac, what about you? Were you injured?"

The law student backed away quickly. "I'm fine. Mainly bruises and a few small cuts and scrapes," he grinned and dodged behind Bahorel out of Joly's way, "my hat is the real casualty. Look at it!" He picked it up off the floor from where he'd dropped it earlier and with a surprisingly genuine sounding sigh he threw himself into a chair and buried his head in his hands.

Bossuet seemed to have brightened up slightly, because he let out a derisive snort of laughter which he hastily turned into a cough. "Tragic!", he exclaimed, wringing his hand in mock-despair, "my condolences, my dear fellow."

"You could try and sound more sincere," his friend complained, not even raising his head, "that's my third hat this week. I'm in despair!"

"It's a hat, Courfeyrac, stop being so melodramatic."

"An expensive hat!"

Joly ignored both of them and crossed the room to help Bossuet to his feet. "I'd better get him home. Will you be ok, Bahorel?"

"I'll be fine," Bahorel answered grumpily, "no thanks to you." But he was grinning affectionately as he said it.

"I'll take him home, make sure he's alright," Courfeyrac volunteered and before Bahorel could object he had grabbed him under the uninjured arm and pulled him towards the door. "Good night," he called back over his shoulder as he practically rushed out the door. As it swung shut Joly heard him mutter: "We could always get a drink on the way home."

With an exasperated sigh Joly lead Bossuet over to where Musichetta was stood by the door. "Chetta, this is Laigle de Meaux, but we all call him Bossuet. Bossuet, Musichetta." He beamed at them both, looking both nervous and hopeful at the same time.

Musichetta offered her new acquaintance a timid smile. "Nice to meet you."

Laigle smiled back at her a bit ruefully. "Sorry, I'm not exactly feeling at my best at the moment. Probably not very good company, I apologise."

"No, it's not your fault."

"You didn't plan for Bahorel to knock that light on your head," Joly pointed out, gesturing over his shoulder at the wreckage that had once been the light.

"That's true. Now can we get home please, my head is killing me and the room is starting to spin rather nastily," Laigle requested. He did in fact look rather tired and pale and had his eyes half closed in pain. It was all he could do to manage to stay standing up leaning on Joly.

"Sorry, of course." The medical student ducked under his friend's arm and supported his weight as they set off walking. After a few steps Laigle wobbled dangerously almost falling and pulling Joly with him. Musichetta hurriedly caught up with the pair and pulled his other arm round her shoulders to support him from the other side.

As they walked Joly suddenly remembered why Musichetta was there. "So why were you looking for me?", he asked her curiously.

The young woman had up until that point completely forgotten why she had actually been looking for him. His question brought it all flooding back but strangely enough it didn't seem to bother her too much any more. Maybe, Musichetta thought, she'd just been overreacting in the first place and all she had needed was time to calm down a bit. "It's not important. I just got stupidly upset about something. I was being silly, that's all," she answered truthfully.

Laigle gave her an adorably concerned look. "Anything we can help you with?" He shifted his weight so as to get a better look at her face to see if she still looked upset.

An indescribable feeling of joy settled over Musichetta. These two wonderful, sweet men were looking worriedly at her; they genuinely cared if she was alright. She felt the urge to hug the pair of them but settled for squeezing Laigle's hand and beaming up at him. "That's so sweet, but I'll be alright. I don't really know what came over me." Now she thought about it, she did actually feel silly for getting so worked up. It wasn't like _he_ had even seen her. She pushed the thoughts of _him_ to the back of her mind and focussed on helping Laigle navigate his way around pedestrians coming the opposite way. _He _didn't matter to her any more. This was what mattered. She had moved on with her life. There was no way for _him _to hurt her now.

Joly still looked a little unconvinced, but made no comment. He only said: "As long as you feel better now." and smiled at her kindly.

She grinned back at him, knowing he didn't believe her and trying to sound as happy as possible to convince him."Yes, thank you. You distracted me with your fight," she changed the subject.

"Ah, that. Sorry about that." It was Laigle who answered.

Glad that her distraction had at least worked on one of them, Musichetta pressed her advantage. "What was it about?", she wanted to know. She was in fact wondering what on earth could have been serious enough to be worth destroying an entire café for, sincerely hoping it wasn't something stupid like one of their opponents had cheated at cards or insulted them or anything like that. That would really damage the respect she had for Joly and her new-found respect for Laigle. But knowing Joly she somehow doubted it. He wasn't the type to get into or to pick fights for no reason, at least she hoped not.

"The fight?"

"Yes."

"Oh, nothing much. Just a small political disagreement," Joly answered with a grin.

A political disagreement? Musichetta frowned confused. She hadn't even realised her friend had an interest in politics. And what must their political views be to get them into a fight like that? How could their views be that radical and yet she'd never noticed? But then again, why would she have found out? Looking back she and Joly had never once discussed politics, probably why she hadn't realised he was interested in them. And how did she know they had radical views anyway, she asked herself. Maybe it was the other group of young men who had the extremist opinions and had started the fight. Either way Musichetta thought it best not to ask. She didn't wish to sound nosy or rude, so she limited herself to saying: "A small political disagreement!? You call that small!? I thought you were all going to get yourselves killed!"

Laigle snorted. "Us? Never." His eyes were twinkling with mirth.

"We've been in worse fights, trust me," the hypochondriac added unhelpfully.

Musichetta was horrified. That was probably the worst fight she'd ever seen, not that she had in fact seen many fights at all, and they had been in worse! "That's not exactly reassuring,"she exclaimed, her voice wavering slightly despite her best efforts. The though of them getting hurt made her feel physically sick. Joly was probably the best friend she'd ever had and even though she had only known him for a short while Musichetta had felt an immediate affection towards Laigle. She didn't want to see either of them hurt.

Both men laughed and grinned at her, Joly a comforting smile, Laigle a mischievous one. She smiled back at them, reassured at least for the moment, and the trio lapsed into a companionable silence.

As they walked Musichetta had the opportunity to study Laigle. He would have been studying her back but his head had started throbbing even worse than before and the street had started to spin, so he very much doubted he could have focussed on her, even if he'd wanted to.

What she saw was a pleasant-looking young man of about the same age as Joly, maybe a bit older. He was bald, but if anything instead of detracting from his looks, it made him more handsome, almost striking. His clothes were old: his hat was worn, his coat had holes in the elbows and was threadbare and his trousers had faded from black to grey. But none of this seemed important. It was his eyes she noticed most. They were warm and kind, with a mischievous sparkle in them and were constantly smiling and laughing, even when the rest of his face was not and even when clouded with pain. She could almost fall in love with those eyes on the spot, she reflected.

Her thoughts were interrupted by them reaching Joly's building and the medical student unlocking the door. With some difficulty they managed to manoeuvre themselves over the threshold and into the hall. Above them the landlady was stood on the stairs again, this time wiping a filthy cloth over the handrail, Joly shuddered at the sight. Noticing them, the landlady glared ferociously down at Laigle and stomped off in disgust muttering to herself. Seconds later they heard the door to her room slam.

This reminded Musichetta of something. She turned to face Laigle. "Laigle?", she questioned.

"You can call me Bossuet by the way. Everyone else does," he corrected grinning tiredly at her.

"In that case, Bossuet?"

"Yes?"

"Why does Joly's landlady seem to hate you so much? When I asked her where Joly was earlier, she got really angry when you were mentioned."

Joly and Laigle burst into fits of laughter. "The horrible old crone!", the law student gasped clutching at his friend for support.

Musichetta looked over her shoulder as they began to ascend the stairs to check the old woman was not within earshot. "Bossuet! She might hear you!", she scolded earning herself an unperturbed shrug.

Still laughing fit to burst Joly explained: "He fell off a chair once when spring cleaning, went through the floor and landed on her collection of hand-painted pottery cats." He was laughing so hard he barely managed to get the last part of the sentence out.

"Did they survive?", Musichetta wanted to know torn between mirth and guilt for finding the situation funny.

"Not a single one," Laigle choked.

The mirth outweighed the guilt and Musichetta began to giggle. "That explains it," she sniggered.

Laigle put on an outraged air. "I had to spend hours lying in bed while Joly extracted pieces of cat from my back. I still have the scars!", he cried indignantly.

"You poor thing!"

By that time they had reached Joly's door. "Chetta, would you like to come in?", the hypochondriac offered. He gave her a hopeful grin, still struggling to stop laughing.

"No, thanks. You probably need to look after Bossuet, I'd just be in the way," Musichetta declined.

"Are you sure? You're never in the way." Joly still sounded hopeful but he could already see that she wasn't going to stay. She never liked feeling like she was disturbing him. Even when he insisted she wasn't in the way she still looked a bit uncomfortable being there when he had something else to do.

Laigle still had his arm draped around Joly's neck but had let go of Musichetta. He already liked this friend of Joly's and wanted to talk to her some more and find out a bit more about her. "You're welcome to stay if you want, we'd love the company."

Musichetta suddenly remembered that she had been in the middle of a particularly complicated piece of work when she had rushed to find Joly and she really needed to finish it before the end of the week. Unfortunately she was already a bit behind schedule and today's distraction hadn't helped. With a sigh she shook her head. "That's alright. I'd probably better be getting back to work anyway."

Both students looked slightly disappointed. "Well, have fun," Laigle joked as she pulled a face.

"Thanks. And it was lovely meeting you. You're even nicer than I'd thought you'd be from Joly's description." When she said this Laigle beamed happily and Joly looked very pleased with himself.

"Thank you. It was great to meet you, too."

"See you soon, Chetta." Joly hugged her goodbye and turned to open the door.

"Goodbye both of you and get well soon, Bossuet."

Both students stood in the doorway waving after her as she set off along the corridor to the stairs. "Bye," they called in unison as she reached the top step.

With a last glance over her shoulder Musichetta hurried away down the stairs and out into the bright sunshine. As she walked away she thought about the two friends and when she would get any time to visit them again. At the moment she was very busy and the thought of not seeing them made her feel a little miserable. Forcing a bright smile onto her face she marched away from Joly's building and rounding the corner onto the next street it occurred to her that Joly had been right when he first met her and said she'd get on with Bossuet.

Carefully Joly helped his injured friend inside and hung up their hats and coats as Laigle lent on the wall to stop himself from wobbling over.

"She's lovely," Laigle commented, once the door was definitely shut so she couldn't hear him.

"I know," his friend agreed.

"I really hope we can spend some more time with her. She's a wonderful girl."

"I'm sure we will, now go to bed. I'll sit with you and keep an eye on you." It was a good idea to stay with him even if Joly was sure the other student would be fine. He did actually have some work that really needed doing but it could wait, Joly decided. His friend was more important and he wouldn't feel comfortable leaving him by himself.

As they crossed the room Laigle lent his head on Joly's shoulder. "Thanks, Jolllly."

The medical student waved away his thanks with a grin. "It's nothing."

Once he was sure his patient was comfortable Joly settled himself in a chair to read his book, a fascinating volume on surgical procedures.

After a few minutes of trying and failing to persuade Joly that he didn't need to stay Laigle finally fell asleep with a last mumbled apology for getting hurt again.


End file.
